Recent content by Rafi

Bumping this thread. Does anybody happen to know what the taxi or Uber situation is at Depew for the westbound LSL, which has a scheduled arrival at 12:30 AM? I’m planning a trip and will need to get to downtown Buffalo after the LSL pulls in. Any advice would be appreciated! Rafi

And count me as one of those non-VRE Amtrak passengers. I work near the L'Enfant VRE station, and on the occasions when I travel to Culpeper after work, I ticket myself out of WAS and hop on at L'Enfant. I'll be doing the same in a few months when I head to Norfolk. It's a great alternative to...

"Near" is a relative term. In Virginia, if you're within an hour, you're local. So in this case, Charlottesville and Richmond are, in fact, nearby. As for how to get from Richmond to Charlottesville, the theory is that Megan's sister might be willing to pick her up, which would not be anything...

Megan, a few other options: 1). Take an Amtrak Regional from Philadelphia to Washington, DC and catch a greyhound bus out of DC to Charlottesville. 2). Take an Amtrak Regional from Philadelphia to Washington, DC and catch a VRE commuter train from DC to Manassas, VA if your sister can come...

Unfortunately, I think it's a matter of when, not if this is going to happen--at least the way things have been going. Sad news, to be sure. What's not immediately clear to me is how, exactly, the SWC will make the platform at Belen. The platform track there is stub-ended on the southern side...

Folks, While I've ridden out of NPN many times, I've never had occasion to park there and leave a car and I've paid little attention to the parking lot. I'm going to have that opportunity in the next few months, so I was wondering if anyone knows just how plentiful parking is at NPN. The lot...

I think everyone has pretty much covered the options for getting to Aberdeen with a change of trains (and that's something I'd definitely consider), but I can clarify the pick-up options in Baltimore a bit. If your friend picks you up in Baltimore, there is a big circular driveway in front of...

Speaking as a part-time Culpeper resident, I think I can speak with some confidence on the state of Amtrak there. Fredericksburg and Manassas are not viable alternative stations to Culpeper, plain and simple. On a map they may look close, but, really, you're just going to drive to where you...

The counter argument to that (which I sort of, but not entirely agree with), is that what would be lost in Lynchburg, would be gained twice over in Charlottesville and Culpeper with people who want to make day trips to DC and people who want to get to New York by noonish. Rafi

Who knows. I don't think they've even gotten that far yet. Right now the state's just figuring out where to get the money for the track improvements that NS wants, then they need to figure out stations. Schedule comes much later. I can tell you that even though CSX plays a minor role in the...

The bridge to which you're referring is the access bridge from the Hotel Roanoke to downtown Roanoke. I've often wondered if a stairway and elevator from that bridge down to the center platform would be an easy stopgap until a pedestrian bridge could be built at the old N&W station, but I...

There's been thought, and while everyone would love to have it, it's just not cost-effective right now. You think west of Roanoke is slow? HAH! Charlottesville-Doswell (just north of Ashland, VA) makes the Bristol route look like the TGV. If you've ever ridden the Cardinal from Charlottesville...

The track is fine for the most part. Recent excursion trains on that stretch of track have run right around 60 mph for the entire stretch; I'm not sure if 79 is allowed with the current track, however. Norfolk Southern's concerns are primarily related to track capacity and signal improvements...

My understanding is that, in true CSX fashion, the improvements they want to the peninsula line are entirely capacity-related and have nothing to do with speed to NPN (although that would likely be improved as a byproduct). I know that CSX was requiring either a Y or a long siding (can't recall...

Here's a quick update: ROANOKE: Virginia has shown increased interest in extending the Lynchburg train to Roanoke thanks to the very successful launch of the SmartWay Shuttle that connects to the train in Lynchburg and makes stops in Bedford, Roanoke, and Blacksburg. There's still no money...